Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson gives rare interview

The infamously reclusive creator of Calvin &
Hobbes, Bill Watterson, spoke for the first time in several
years in a new interview at Mental Floss. Watterson, whose
art will soon appear in an exhibit at the Billy Ireland Cartoon
Library and Museum with work from Cul de Sac creator Richard
Thompson, discussed his feelings on the world of digital comics,
creators' rights, and how he almost lost Calvin &
Hobbes.

Asked where he thinks Calvin &
Hobbes fits into today's comics landscape, which includes not
only print comics but webcomics and digital comics, Watterson
replies:

"Personally, I like paper and ink better than
glowing pixels, but to each his own. Obviously the role of comics
is changing very fast. On the one hand, I don't think comics have
ever been more widely accepted or taken as seriously as they are
now. On the other hand, the mass media is disintegrating, and
audiences are atomising. I suspect comics will have less widespread
cultural impact and make a lot less money. I'm old enough to find
all this unsettling, but the world moves on. All the new media will
inevitably change the look, function, and maybe even the purpose of
comics, but comics are vibrant and versatile, so I think they'll
continue to find relevance one way or another. But they definitely
won't be the same as what I grew up with."

He also discussed his battle for more room and
flexibility on the comics page at a time when that real estate was
shrinking, a battle that he famously won. It was a riskier
proposition than many may realise; after signing most of his rights
away to get syndicated, Watterson said he had no legal rights to
demand anything, and could have even lost Calvin &
Hobbes itself. "I could not take the strip with me if I quit,
or even prevent the syndicate from replacing me, so I was truly
scared I was going to lose everything I cared about either way… It
was a grim, sad time."

While the notion of Bill Watterson being
replaced by anyone on Calvin & Hobbes is blasphemy to
fans of the strip, the experience he describes offers an
interesting contrast to the landscape of comics today, where it's
far easier for webcartoonists with a wide variety of styles and
stories to find their own niche audience without the help of a
syndicate. But as Watterson notes, this can also atomise the
audience from national to niche, while the comics pages of
newspapers are still shrinking (and newspapers aren't faring so
well themselves).

This long tail of comics may allow creators more
diversity and more control, but Watterson worries that without mass
media distribution comics "will have less widespread cultural
impact and make a lot less money" - that it will be difficult to
create more comics like Calvin & Hobbes, which become
cultural touchstones because they are read by all, not merely a
small, devoted audience.